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Task Force on the Future of Libraries

October 13, 2015

To the members of the MIT community:

I am writing to let you know that I have asked Chris Bourg, the Director of MIT Libraries, to lead an Ad Hoc Task Force on the Future of Libraries, composed of faculty, staff and students from across the Institute. Because the MIT Libraries play a pivotal role in how scholarly information is communicated among faculty, students and researchers, the future of our educational and research programs depends heavily on services that the Libraries provide.

The Task Force is charged with seeking broad input from the MIT community and from domain experts on how the MIT Libraries ought to evolve to best advance the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge—and to serve as a leader in the reinvention of research libraries.

The full charge to the Task Force, along with the list of committee members, can be seen at the Task Force website.

I encourage all members of the MIT community to share any thoughts or suggestions they may have regarding the work of the Task Force via this web site. The site includes an idea bank through which any MIT community member can share thoughts about the role of the Libraries; it also includes other mechanisms for communicating directly with the Task Force members.

I have asked the Task Force to issue a report and set of recommendations by the end of the 2015-16 academic year. Again, I encourage you to take advantage of these opportunities to engage with, and contribute your thoughts to, the Task Force over the course of the year. I very much look forward to working with the Task Force, and to eventually sharing the results of its efforts with the MIT community.